Human Error
by mugglehugger
Summary: "Is it the pathologist? It is! That little slip of a thing...my, my, you are a man of simple tastes." Sherlock/Molly, making mistakes and fixing them. Two-shot, complete.
1. i

_Author's Note:_ My first foray into a new fandom! I _love_ Sherlock, and this was a blast to write. Please review!

* * *

Human Error

(i)

He doesn't care for Molly Hooper, doesn't even see her. It starts because she's ordinary, the not caring. Because she's utterly plain, utterly predictable, and therefore, utterly _dull_.

It's almost aggressive, her ordinariness, as if she's actively trying to bore him. Everyone's a goldfish eventually, but most at least _put up a fight_ for the proverbial three seconds. They're either tight-lipped or uptight, trying to hide something by saying nothing, or prove something by saying no. They thrash about a bit in their bowls. And for the time it takes him to deduce their secret or their pressure point, to break them down into component parts to be read or rearranged, they're _interesting_.

Not so Molly Hooper. She's clingwrap transparent and just as pliable, a particularly apt analogy, given that she helps him keep things from decomposing.

He discovers all of this when he sweeps into the morgue one morning and finds there's a new pathologist, and she's _moved his cultures_. She stammers some nonsense about that lamp being too hot, and that one being too cold, and this one being just right, and it's _not_ nonsense, annoyingly, because this lamp really _is_ the appropriate temperature. But he's hardly going to encourage her. "Yes," he says drily, "a veritable three bears fairy tale of a heating device." She flushes a furious shade of pink.

Lestrade rescues her by asking to see the body. In twenty seconds he knows everything there is to know about the murder, and about her.

"Oh, you've not met, have you?" observes Lestrade, eagle-eyed as ever. "Sherlock, this is Doctor Molly –"

"Hooper, yes," he says.

He could say a great deal more.

(Just past thirty, single, living alone. Trained upstairs, likely top of her class, since she managed to get this job, and not through a family connection. Mother dead, fifteen-odd years ago, by the look of her earrings – twenty years older than she is and better cared for, ergo her late mother's. Father sick, by the look of her collar – indentations from a hospital visitor's badge, only distributed to immediate family of long-term patients. Ten-year-old cat, morbidly obese, for company, and a tuna sandwich for lunch.)

But he doesn't. People are always accusing him of saying thoughtless things, and it's irritating, the implication that he doesn't think before he speaks, when in fact he _thinks_ multiples more than they do and _says_ fractions of what he sees. Just because he says things he _shouldn't_ doesn't mean he says everything he _could_. _People_ should be more grateful.

With that in mind, he decides to indulge himself. "Time to go, Lestrade," he adds. "We mustn't keep Doctor Hooper from her date."

She freezes, like a deer caught in headlights. "What – I'm not – how did –"

"Come now," he says, "your jumper and trousers are new. You really should wash new clothes before you wear them, you know – I can smell the Marks & Spencer bargain bin from here – and a quick ironing wouldn't go amiss either – creases, very visible, very distracting. And your make-up, a bit heavy, especially around the cheekbones, which suggests you don't wear it often. People tend to overdo things they haven't practiced."

She stares at him, wide-eyed. Her hand drifts up to rub at her cheek.

"New clothes, new make-up, suggest date, but what makes me think we're keeping you from it? Lipstick."

She blinks, her fingers migrating to her lips. "Lipstick?" she murmurs.

"Recently refreshed. You wouldn't refresh your lipstick at the end of your shift unless you were going to meet Doctor Liver Disease directly after. And you're clearly anxious to leave the lab. You've glanced at the clock every thirty seconds since we've been here – like clockwork, incidentally – and you're awfully restless for someone whose job requires patience and precision."

Now all she can manage is a whisper. "Doctor Liver Disease?"

He's pleased she caught that. "The man pacing in the lobby upstairs. Doctor O'Dougherty, I believe his scrubs said? Clearly a heavy drinker, liver should fail within the decade. I could explain if you like, but at this point, I think we should just agree you'll take my word for it."

She's speechless. He's smug. Lestrade's shaking his head. "Take a day off, Sherlock," he groans.

" _I_ can afford to," he replies, straightening his cuffs. "You, on the other hand, have an arrest to make."

"Come off it!" Lestrade protests. "You haven't even looked at the body!"

"No," he says, making sure to speak slowly, " _you_ haven't looked at the body." He adjusts his coat across his shoulders. "It was the girlfriend."

Molly Hooper recovers just enough to frown down at the medical file and contribute. "Girlfriend?" she asks. "He was married."

He smirks as he turns away. "Exactly."

He's baffled her, so when he informs her from the doorway that her cat's in need of diet food, she just gapes, and when he adds that _he's_ in need of mid-sections, week-old at most, she just gapes and _nods_.

He smiles the smile that Mrs. Hudson describes as frightful and lights a B&H as he leaves the room.

Later, when he's wrist-deep in two-day-old torso, he reflects that while he's gratified he'll no longer have to wheedle out parts, he's also slightly disappointed. Doctor Molly Hooper might as well be Mrs. Hudson's stupidly patterned wallpaper, for all the amusement she'll provide.

No, he realizes, that's too generous. At least he can shoot the wallpaper.

* * *

"You've just scared her is all," Lestrade tells him assuredly, "so best not get too comfortable. I know Molly. She'll develop a backbone with you soon enough."

Lestrade knows Molly Hooper about as well as he knows his wife, as it turns out, because she emphatically _doesn't_. What she develops is a _crush_.

* * *

"I was wondering if you'd like to have coffee."

"Black, two sugars, please. I'll be upstairs."

* * *

Inexplicably, she's one of the first things John brings up, after he's saved his life and feels entitled to ask about it.

"So," he says one morning, picking up his mug with deliberate nonchalance. "Girls."

It's two unrelated words, so he doesn't look up from improving the _Times_ crossword. John is like all toddlers and most adults; if you leave him alone long enough, he'll eventually stop crying and tell you what he wants. The silence drags. Their coffee cools.

Finally, "Not your area, you said?"

"Mm," he confirms.

"So, you and Molly Hooper never…?" He trails off expectantly, but when no response is forthcoming, tries again. "You and Molly Hooper were never…together?"

He scratches out eleven down – juvenile. "Mrs. Hudson doesn't buy her herbal soothers at the chemist," he observes.

"What?"

He looks up. "I'm sorry, I thought we were stating the obvious."

John rolls his eyes. "The way she acts, I thought you might have a bit of a…" – he shrugs – "…history. She does you a lot of favors, and that thing where she blushes all down her…?" He gestures in the general direction of his neck and chest.

He closes the paper, folds it in a crisp half. This conversation is in desperate need of clarity. "She's a puppy, John," he says, "which I hope isn't _your_ area either."

John lets out a low whistle. "You can be a bit of a dick, you know that?"

He smirks. "You're just getting that now?"

It's not a perfect metaphor, he knows. Redbeard certainly never wore lipstick for him. But, in this case, he's willing to congratulate himself on an imperfect one.

And then one day, she walks into the lab with Jim from I.T.

* * *

"So you're Sherlock Holmes. Molly's told me all about you. You on one of your cases?"

"Jim works in I.T., upstairs. That's how we met. Office romance."

"Gay."

"Sorry, what?"

"Nothing. Um, hey."

…

"He's not gay! Why'd you have to spoil – ? He's not."

…

"Tinted eyelashes. Clear signs of taurine cream around the frown lines. Those tired, clubber's eyes. Then there's his underwear."

"His underwear?"

"Visible above the waistline, very visible, very particular brand. That, plus the extremely suggestive fact that he just left his number under this dish here, and I'd say you better _break it off_ now and save yourself the pain."

* * *

After, John rustles up his magnifying glass once more. He never learns.

"So," he says, folding his arms over his chest. "You and Molly. No history at all, you said?"

"Mm."

"Because you didn't care one bit about that bloke she brought in – didn't even _look up_ – until she said 'office romance.' And then you wouldn't stop, would you? Christ, the three pounds, and the _gay thing_." He lets his head fall into his hands. "Your 'break it off' was a bit…heated," he adds through his fingers.

"You really _should_ leave the deductions to me, John."

"Yes, well, _I_ don't get annoyed when my co-workers bring in their boyfriends."

"I wasn't annoyed. I was –"

"Irritated?"

"Gotten out your thesaurus again, have you? I thought by now you'd have a firmer grasp on what I look like when I'm annoyed. No. I was _disappointed_. Molly has truly appalling taste in men. _And_ ," he adds, "she's a puppy. We've discussed this."

"Ah." He doesn't let it go, though. "Have it your way, then," he continues. "I don't get _disappointed_ when my _puppies_ bring in their…well, their boyfriends."

"I think this metaphor may have exhausted its usefulness."

John gives him a meaningful look. "Yeah," he says, "I think it may have."

* * *

And he has no idea what that means until he discovers in the sickly glow of the swimming pool that Jim from I.T. is Moriarty, and Moriarty is _him_ – a high-functioning sociopath staring down the barrel of boredom.

And _then_ Molly Hooper is more mystery than mongrel, because the Consulting Criminal hunts what she is not: a diversion.

It's to get to _him_ , of course, but how? There are ways to gain entrance to Bart's that do not require seducing lonely pathologists over chicken tikka carry-out and episodes of _Glee_ , ways that involve marginally more creativity but significantly less suffering. So why bother with her?

"Maybe he wanted something you have," suggests John.

"I don't _have_ anything," he snaps impatiently.

"No, Sherlock," John sighs, "you really do."

He considers this with his tea against his fingertips.

She offers admiration, obviously, but Moriarty hardly lacks admirers – _fans_. Criminals love company, and criminals who consult the Consulting Criminal love to watch things burn. And in any case, Molly Hooper's admiration is a poor prize. It's less articulate than John's, less satisfying than Lestrade's, produces fewer tangible benefits than Mrs. Hudson's. In fact, it's more adoration than admiration, and _mousy_ at that, all wide eyes and slack jaw and quiet, skittish infatuation.

Not ego, then, but something simpler, or even _simplest_. He wonders if it's to do with sex. How disappointing that would be, how predictable and dull, to find that Moriarty is bound by such base instincts. That a mind made for weaving webs would squander neurons on increased blood flow and muscular contractions. That a man made for pulling triggers would waste three weeks pulling _his_ pathologist. He feels a shiver of displeasure – no, of distaste – at the thought.

His – _his_ – pathologist. It's not until it's crossed his mind that he realizes. He's thought of Molly Hooper as someone who brings him coffee laced with sugars and feeble seductions, as someone he tolerates, repudiates, manipulates. But never as someone that's _his_ , something he _has_ , as if it would upset him to lose her.

He fishes his phone from his pocket.

* * *

 _Come to Baker Street. Bring femurs. SH_

 _Sherlock?_

 _Obviously, given number, street, parts, initials. Are you on your way? SH_

 _I'm feeling a bit under the weather right now, actually…_

 _Why? The end of a brief liaison with a sociopathic serial killer hardly warrants prolonged mourning. SH_

…

 _If anything you should be celebrating. SH_

…

 _Molly. SH_

 _Sorry, yes, I'll come._

 _Good. Bring food. SH_

 _I thought you said femurs._

 _Yes. Now I've said both. SH_

* * *

And then he finds that _he_ is disappointing, predictable, and dull.

Because, annoyingly, his inbox is invariably overflowing with emails from husbands-stroke-boyfriends who want their wives-stroke-girlfriends followed-stroke-photographed. He's attempted to stem the tide, of course. He's posted invectives on his website, but John says that no one reads that. He's told John to post invectives on _his_ blog, but John says that disparaging the boring clients will only drive off the interesting ones. Things were simpler before John arrived and started saying things.

In any case, if he was in this for the living, he would make it justifying jealousy.

It's inevitably dressed up, the jealousy, either clipped into bullet point suspicions, brittle with paranoia, or tortured into interminable essays, describing every deception in detail before petering finally into too-familiar farewells – _yours truly, warmest regards_ – rightfully embarrassed by the pathetic manifestos that precede them. But the theme is always this: man doesn't want woman until she doesn't want him.

It's a tiresome rigmarole, and one to which he is pleased he will never stoop – that is, until Molly Hooper arrives at _his_ flat, for _his_ landlady's Christmas party, wearing lipstick for _someone else_.

He _could_ say that it affects him, the clinging fabric, the impractical footwear, the ridiculous bouffant, not only because it's _designed_ to be affecting – and _is_ – but also because it's more effort than she's ever put in at Bart's. It rankles him somehow, somewhere sunk deep beneath his sternum, the realization that all this affectation is for another man, a man who's likely idiotic and certainly inane and demonstrably not _him_. He _could_ say that he finds her disappointingly fickle, could ask her if she makes coffee – black, with two sugars – for this idiotic, inane imposter, whoever he is. Or he _could_ say that Lestrade ought to stop gaping, because it's not that shocking, at least not to him.

He's always known what Molly Hooper looks like under all of those hideous jumpers.

What he does say is: "Miss Hooper has _love_ on her mind. The fact that she's serious about him is clear from the fact she's giving him a gift at all. That all would suggest long-term hopes, however forlorn. And that she's seeing him tonight is evident from her makeup and what she's wearing. Obviously trying to compensate for the size of her mouth and breasts –"

 _Dearest Sherlock_

 _Love Molly xxx_

It's for him after all.

People are always accusing him of saying thoughtless things, and it's irritating, the implication that he doesn't think before he speaks. Nothing he says is ever thoughtless. Although, he thinks, sometimes it's…

"You always say such horrible things. Every time. Always. Always."

"I am sorry," he says – and _is_. "Forgive me." She's looking up at him, all wide eyes and slack jaw and quiet, humiliated hopes, and she's right. He always says such horrible things, every time, always. "Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper." Her cheek is chill beneath his lips, and he does not linger.

But he finds, somehow, somewhere sunk deep beneath his sternum, that it's difficult not to.

* * *

 _Thank you for the scarf._

 _You gave me a gift, now I've reciprocated. No need to thank me. SH_

 _Well, thank you anyway. It's cozy, and I like the pink stripes._

 _Mrs. Hudson chose it. SH_

 _I figured as much. Couldn't imagine you rooting through the Marks & Spencer bargain bin :P_

 _Really, Molly? Emoticons? You have a medical degree. SH_

 _Do I? :) :D ;) ;P_

 _Hopeless. SH_

…

 _I asked her to, though. SH_

 _Hm? Asked who to what?_

 _Asked Mrs. Hudson. To choose a gift for you. SH_

 _Oh. Right. I know. Thank you._

 _Merry Christmas, Molly. SH_

 _Merry Christmas, Sherlock._

* * *

"You're a bit like my dad. He's dead. No – sorry –"

"Molly, please don't feel the need to make conversation. It's really not your area."

"When he was dying, he was always cheerful. He was lovely. Except when he thought no one could see. I saw him once. He looked sad."

"Molly –"

"You look sad, when you think he can't see you. Are you okay? And don't just say you are, because I know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you."

"You can see me."

"I don't count."

…

"What I'm trying to say is that, if there's anything I can do, anything you need, anything at all, you can have me. No – I just mean – I mean – if there's anything you need – it's fine."

"But what could I need from you?"

* * *

He considers this with his Strad against his shoulder.

It was a gift, the Strad, from a client who's no longer lounging in a Sicilian cell and grateful for it. They're all grateful, once he's cracked their case, put together their puzzle, once he's done something for them that they can't do for themselves, once he's put his inhuman mind to their human problem. Lestrade is the same, with his myriad murders, Mrs. Hudson, too, with her husband. Even John, with his limp, with his boredom and resentment. But Molly….

Molly Hooper has never brought him an ordinary problem, has never brought him a problem at all. Instead she brings him coffee laced with sugars and feeble seductions.

And _herself_ , she'd said, if there's anything he needs.

* * *

"Maybe he wanted something you have," John had said.

"I don't _have_ anything."

"No, Sherlock, you really do."

Things were simpler before John arrived and started saying things.

* * *

"You're wrong, you know. You _do_ count. You've always counted, and I've always trusted you. But you were right. I'm not okay."

"Tell me what's wrong."

"Molly, I think I'm going to die."

"What do you need?"

"If I wasn't everything that you think I am, everything that _I_ think I am, would you still want to help me?"

"What do you need?"

"You."

* * *

She helps him die. She finds the _him_ that Moriarty found first, dresses him up in thick wool and thin blood, and helps him fall to his permanent destination. Moriarty rarely makes mistakes, but on that roof he makes two. One: thinking his own death is necessary. Two: thinking Molly Hooper's is not.

After – after the lie leaves his lips and his legs leave the ledge – she lets him into the dim entry of her flat. It was decided, in the main by himself and Mycroft, that he would come here. For the next three weeks, he will hide, and he will plan.

But for now, he lingers, inexplicably, two feet from her floral-print floor lamp and two feet from her.

There is something strange in the space between them, something that he is – annoyingly, irritatingly, _bafflingly_ – unable to identify. It makes the emptiness oddly corporeal. The air seems more than its atoms, thick and heavy and humming. He feels both form and charge.

He wonders if it's something to do with being dead. There are precious few now who know where he _isn't_ – cold on a colder slab – still fewer who know where he _is_. Excepting his brother, his parents, and his homeless network, the world beyond the two of them and this space between believes he no longer exists. Perhaps it's some melodramatic notion of contracted being that makes this little circle of light feel so close around them. Perhaps sentimentality is a side effect of simulated suicide, and he's imagining things.

He meets her eyes and knows he isn't.

But then she says, "Want a deep-fried Mars Bar? I've got them on now."

His lips quirk, the strangeness evaporates. He can suddenly smell the near-sickly sweetness of nougat in caramel in chocolate in dough in oil, can hear it crackling atop the stove. "Deep-fried Mars Bars?" he repeats. "Bit self-indulgent, don't you think?"

She shrugs and says, with a small smile, "Well…I'm trying to make this as close to the after-life as possible, aren't I? And in _my_ after-life, there'll be deep-fried Mars Bars."

"Even on Tuesdays at…" – he glances at his watch – "midnight?"

"Even on _every_ day at midnight."

He laughs then, and it's so unexpected that it nearly catches in his throat, comes out low and hoarse. She leads him down the hall to the kitchen, and he stands behind her, arms folded, muttering imprecations against her cat – a new one, Toby, not He of the Obvious Obesity – as it wends its way around his ankles. He shuts up when he bites into a bar. It is exquisite. They chew in silence, leaning against the linoleum counter.

Finally, he speaks. "Shall we send a box of these to my brother?"

"I thought you said he was on a diet."

He smirks. "Precisely."

She beams – actually _beams_ – then pinks and presses her lips together, fumbling for another sweet. She's always been irrationally insecure about her crooked canines, hiding them behind mugs and microscopes and half-grins, as if anyone would notice an off tooth or two on a woman wearing a bright pink sweater with pom-pom trim. He wonders whether he can cure her with compliments, whether he can manage it in less than a month. He feels he should, for her sake.

She's much more…affecting when she smiles properly.

And so, on that first night, in those first hours, he stands and eats diabetic nightmares with the imperative Molly Hooper and feels ironically alive.

* * *

Later, she gives him a tour of the flat, which he supplements when she leaves for Bart's next morning. (Small, busy, but neat. Cleaned on alternate weeks, going by the precarious stacks of periodicals – littered across various surfaces, but never more than a fortnight deep. Scientific journals, mostly, but tedious women's magazines too, neither of which offers any insight into their subscriber beyond profession and gender. More lucrative are the photographs, both the ones in frames – parents, no siblings, a few, close friends – and the ones in a shoebox at the back of her closet – four ex-boyfriends, and _Jim_ ).

Still later, their clumsy cohabitation assumes a routine. He sleeps rarely and at odd hours, so is sometimes awake when she leaves for Bart's and cut-up bodies. She reappears some hours later and there is food, either carry-out, inexpertly packaged in leaky boxes and crumpled plastic bags, or home cooking, inexpertly attempted in amusing contrast to the precision of her pathology. Then, twice, they play a board game – chess, which he wins, and Operation, which _she_ does – but more often he retreats back to her spare bedroom and cut-up bodies of a different type.

There is also, after all, the business of being dead.

* * *

"James Moriarty isn't a man at all," he had told that already-corrupted court. "He's a spider. A spider at the center of a web. A criminal web with a thousand threads, and he knows precisely how each and every single one of them dances."

* * *

Moriarty drew in both villains and victims, and dismantling his network must begin with the unromantic task of tacking up names and faces and tracking them across Europe and beyond.

One evening, he discovers that the spare is no longer sufficient for that purpose.

"What – you've – why are you in _here_?" she near shrieks when she comes home to find him face-up on _her_ bed, three patches on his forearm and three dozen pictures on her walls.

He doesn't look up. "Not enough space," he says, gesturing vaguely.

"But you've put a million holes through the wallpaper!" she protests. "My landlady – I've got to fill them all in or she'll take it out of my security deposit. That's why I put up corkboards in the other room."

"Well, Molly," he replies slowly, "perhaps you should consider renting from someone who isn't a veritable tyrant."

"Not all of us can get our landlady's husband off a murder charge, you know."

"On."

"On what?"

"I got Mr. Hudson _on_ a murder charge, thank you very much."

* * *

She wears black to his funeral.

"Uncharacteristically morbid, Molly," he comments when she emerges from beneath a sopping umbrella. And it _is_ – clunky clogs, wool tights, and a dark dress that looks a bit like a box. Not a single pigment, pattern, or pom-pom in sight. "Doesn't really suit you," he concludes, turning back to the _Times_ crossword, which has gotten no less juvenile since his false fall.

She stops short, the umbrella half-shut and dripping onto the welcome mat. "Suit me?" she repeats. Her voice has an odd edge to it, and he wonders if she's caught a cold. He'll tell her to make tea.

"No, it doesn't. Frankly, your usual wardrobe brings to mind that of an eighty-year-old apocalypse survivor, but at least it doesn't make you look quite so pale."

She'd been frozen before, but suddenly she begins to move with startling speed, her limbs jerking haphazardly as she peels off her coat, pushes it onto a peg, shoves off her shoes. "Funnily enough," she says too loudly, "on the occasions when I wear it, I'm not really concerned about what _suits me_."

He frowns, but before he can decide what's wrong with her, she flushes and freezes again, this time with her arms folded across her chest. "Sorry…" – she exhales heavily – "…it's just – I just mean…." She picks at a piece of thread at her left elbow. "…It's fine."

"Molly –" he begins.

A knock at the door makes her jump. She shoots him a panicked look and an imprecise gesture, but he doesn't move. The doorstep's at the wrong angle for anyone on it to see the sofa. She goes to the door, and though she pulls her ponytail over her shoulder to tug nervously at the damp strands, he knows it's no one dangerous by the way her shoulders sag when she opens it. He watches the back of her neck, where a constellation of freckles disappears beneath her collar, and listens to the voices that filter down the hall.

"Hello!" (Woman, mid-thirties, by her pitch. Trying to sound brighter than she feels. Trying to compensate for something.) "You don't happen to have any cinnamon, do you? I've just opened a packet of biscuits, and I like to sprinkle a bit on. But," she continues, "if you haven't got any on hand, don't bother tearing up your cupboards for it." Her tone softens. "I'm _really_ here to see if you're all right."

"Oh," Molly replies. "I'm all right." Then, after a pause, "I'm just…." Her breath catches in a soft sob. He rolls his eyes. They clearly need to discuss how to get rid of unwanted visitors. Lesson one: don't start weeping.

"Oh, Mol…." There is the crumpled-fabric sound of an embrace. "I'm so sorry. I know how much you cared about him."

Molly's next murmur is muffled, probably against the shoulder she's crying on. He sighs and soundlessly re-opens the anatomy textbook he found on her bedroom bookcase. "Want to come over to mine?" the woman says. "I've got those biscuits, and there is some _truly_ crap telly on this time of day."

"Thanks, but I'm all right. I'd rather be alone for a bit, really."

"Okay. Well, if you need anything, yeah?"

She begins to shuffle off, but then Molly speaks. He resists the urge to slam the book shut in annoyance. Lesson two: don't prevent them from leaving. "None of it's true, you know," she says. "What they're saying about him in the papers. It's not true."

There is a beat of silence. "I know," the woman says finally. "Didn't believe it for a second."

"You didn't?"

"No. Some people really _are_ just _that_ extraordinary."

* * *

After she's gone, Molly loiters in the hall, swiping at her wet eyes with her sleeve. "My neighbor," she says when she turns, trying for nonchalance. "Mary Morstan."

"Mm."

"I'm thinking of introducing her to John," she continues. "She's a nurse, and they're looking for a new doctor at her clinic."

He looks up at that. "What does that have to do with John?"

"He left the last clinic after things fell apart with Sarah."

"Yes, and…?" he asks, turning back to a diagram of the endocrine system. "We've done perfectly well financially since the Reichenbach case."

For a moment, she is silent, and then the moment multiplies. His eyes skim from pituitary to pancreas. At last, "And what do you think he's going to do now you're dead?"

He snorts, flips the page. "I'm not dead, Molly. I'm _pretending_ to be dead."

"I know."

Another snort, and a pointed glance this time. " _Do_ you?"

She flushes. "Yes, Sherlock, I do," she says, too loud once more. "But John doesn't, does he? He was mourning at your funeral just now." She stalks past him to the spare bedroom, and he's about to tell her that scowling really isn't her area – it makes her look like an angry rodent – when she adds, in the second before the door slams shut, "And _he_ wasn't pretending."

* * *

In such a small flat, he cannot avoid her. It's too bad. He prefers to text, and apologies, in particular, are easier in print. She is sitting on the far left seat of the sofa, her legs in checked flannel and pulled up to her chest. She sleeps that way too – lying on her mattress, he's felt the groove made by her curled body beneath his own. It's typical of Molly Hooper to take up so little of her own space.

"What _is_ that screeching?" he asks.

"Oh, sorry. I can turn it down if you're –"

"No need." He moves around the armchair and gestures to the cushion beside her. "May I?"

"Oh – um – yeah." She wraps her arms around her knees, a dense sphere of discomfort. "The cookies are chocolate chip," she adds, nodding to the platter on the coffee table. He takes one and leans back against the seat.

"So?" he says after a moment. "The screeching?"

"Oh! Um – she's – the woman in pink – she's just found out her baby is _that_ man's and not her husband's."

"Well, clearly," he offers. "Look at the state of her husband's trainers."

She turns her head to ask him to explain, but then seems to think better of it. She bites her lip and holds her tongue. They sit in silence. The husband is trying to throttle the lover, who looks distinctly unenthusiastic about the newest addition to his bloodline.

"I am sorry," he says. The woman in pink begins to wail at an entirely new register. "The last time you wore that dress was for your father's funeral. Stain remover on the hem where you washed the cemetery dirt out," he elaborates when she looks at him. "Nine months old. Cancer?"

She nods and visibly swallows.

"I am sorry," he says again. "I realize that what I said about the dress was…not entirely good."

She runs her fingers over the turn-ups of her pajama bottoms. "No," she agrees. "But it's all right."

The host decides that the fight has outlived its entertainment value. He jerks his thumb at a pair of burly security guards. "Was there a funeral?" Molly asks suddenly. "For…" – she hesitates around the name – "Irene Adler?"

There is little she could have said to surprise him. As it is, not a single word comes readily to mind. He remembers the Woman, has thought of her more often than he will ever admit, but was sure he was the only one.

"Was that her name?" she says when he doesn't respond. "I only glanced at the file, after you…identified her." She blushes and turns determinedly to the screen.

He realizes she doesn't know about all that came after the Woman's Christmas text: her resurrection, her pulse, her plan revealed. And of course, she doesn't know about _his_ rescue, their fly-by-night fleeing to a city eight hundred miles away. Irene Adler _was_ her name, but isn't anymore.

"No," he answers at last. "Not that I am aware of."

She frowns. "You didn't want to go?"

"Why would I want to go?"

She shrugs. The security guards drag the men off camera. "To pay your respects, to show you cared…?"

"Who says I cared?"

"You had a cigarette," she says. "I saw you in the hall. At the hospital. You hadn't had one in ages – but you had one then."

He stills his fingers where they're tapping against the armrest. "Hardly," he replies carefully, and he turns to smile at her. "It was low-tar."

She smiles back, but hers is sadder.

* * *

They sit up late, laughing at the television and licking smears of chocolate chips from their fingertips. "You should," he says casually when she asks him to pass over the throw draped across his side of the sofa.

She wraps the wool around her shoulders, ensconcing herself in a knit cocoon. "Should what?"

"Introduce Maggie to John."

She blinks. "Maggie?" He waits for her mind to catch up with his words. "Oh! _Mary_."

He shrugs. "Mary, then."

"You think so?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

He shrugs again,but this time finds he has to _try_ for indifference. "John likes cinnamon on his biscuits too."

* * *

One night, late, he's lying atop her bedspread, staring past the ceiling and its stuck-on galaxy of glow-in-the-dark stars. Five victims, five modi operandi… _one_ murderer. He's sure of it. One _serial killer_ , one with the brawn to shoot, strike, stab, smother, strangle in turn, the brains to know Scotland Yard would never connect the crimes, and the psychosis to kill with increasing intimacy.

"Reminds me of _my_ first blood draw."

He purses his lips. "Shouldn't you be asleep, Molly?" he says without turning. "You have four autopsies scheduled for tomorrow, and according to your files, there's rather a lot to get through on Mr. Nichols, unless someone slipped on the numpad."

"You mean because he was overweight," she says flatly. She doesn't wait for an answer before adding, disapprovingly, "He had Type II diabetes."

"Yes, well, cause and effect," he muses. He has a sudden thought. "Speaking of, it's midnight isn't it?"

"Half past." She pauses. "I'll make them if you apologize to Mr. Nichols."

He frowns. "Mr. Nichols is dead."

"Well-spotted," she quips. "And the dead deserve a little respect." He sits up on his elbows to look at her. She has her arms crossed and her eyebrows raised, and her lips are tilted in the nervous, little half-smirk that means she's challenging him, which is often, lately. It happened when he taped a photograph of a severed head to her bathroom mirror. It happened when he proposed a perfectly harmless experiment on Toby. It happened when he woke her up at four in the morning by standing at the foot of her bed and giving it a kick.

Apparently "looming over people in the dark" is "unsettling."

"She'll develop a backbone with you soon enough," Lestrade had said. And if by "soon enough" he meant "after you've faked your death and appropriated her bedroom," then it seems he was right. For once.

He's not sure he likes the backbone, but he likes the smirk.

So he says, "Fine. I am sorry, Mr. Nichols, that the cholesterol from your daily double cheeseburger detached from your arteries and killed you, thus necessitating this apology."

She sighs heavily. "All right. How many do you want?"

He grins the frightful grin. "How many do you have?"

She laughs and disappears into the kitchen. "And Molly?" he calls to her retreating back. "Don't do sarcasm. It's not your area." He hears her snort from the stovetop and collapses back down, smiling and oddly cheerful.

But then he starts to think, and his smile fades. The telltale crackling of oil issues from beyond. "Reminds me of _my_ first blood draw," she had said. He pushes himself up and off the mattress.

"Blood draw, blood draw…," he mutters, ripping one of the photographs from the wall. Its tack makes an angry slicking sound as it unsticks, but he doesn't hear it hit the floor.

"Molly!"

"Hm?"

"Molly!"

By the time she reappears, he's knocked through a half-dozen file stacks and emerged exultant, five folders in hand. "What were you thinking, when you said that?" he asks.

"Said what?"

It was a rhetorical question, so he's no longer listening, hardly logs the clink of dish on dresser as she sets down the deep-fried desserts, comes to stand by his side. His mind is already racing ahead, rushing down a twisting, turning palace corridor made suddenly straight by….

He meets her gaze, flushed with triumph. "Five murders, Molly," he says, "and nothing in common except –" His finger jabs at manila. " – poorly-executed _blood draws_."

She blinks, then holds out her hands, begins to flip, finds the first victim's medical records, then the second's, third's, fourth's, her eyes flicking across autopsy images. Finally, she looks up, understanding. "Who did the draws?" she asks.

" _That_ , my dear Molly," he replies with a grin, "is the question."

* * *

At half past midnight there were five faces tacked to the wall, set with five pairs of cold, lightless, _lifeless_ eyes. By half past two, there is only one, the eyes equally cold, equally lightless. Lifeless, yet very much alive. A noted hematologist and humanitarian – a soon-to-be noted murderer too, given away by inexcusably sloppy syringe-work. He smiles. "Always so desperate to get caught," he murmurs.

It has been a productive night, and with the unique altruism of achievement, he can admit that the success is shared, can even acknowledge the likelihood that without Molly Hooper, he would still be staring at her ceiling rather than his serial killer. He turns to tell her so…and finds she is curled on her bed – _his_ bed – and sound asleep.

Somehow, the sight stops him short. _His_ bed. He is oddly, _acutely_ aware of the possessive.

She is predictably ungraceful in sleep. Not for Molly the Woman's perfumed polish, no seductive set of lashes and lips, no subtle suggestion of legs beneath sheets. He felt admiration, then, for the completeness of the picture, almost more than for its allure. For the Woman's careful cultivation of a fantasy, which extended even to slumber. He feels something else, now, for Molly's singular inelegance.

She's breathing deeply, and a limp, dull brown tendril catches on each exhalation. As it settles back down, her forehead creases, her nose wrinkles. Finally, she gives a frustrated groan, reaches up, paws it clumsily away. At intervals, the tip of her tongue darts out to moisten the left corner of her lower lip. He remembers seeing chapstick, somewhere….

She is utterly unselfconscious, stripped of pretense and insecurity.

As he watches, she shifts, and one plaid-panted leg curls in against the cold. He realizes she's _atop_ the coverlet rather than beneath it, and before he quite knows what he's doing, he's two steps closer and tucking her in.

His mind rarely moves more slowly than his limbs, and he muses that for something supposedly tender, protectiveness is surprisingly propulsive. A palm at the small of her back, a slight lift, a tug of blankets up under her chin. She sighs softly, burrows into the fabric. Surprisingly _painful_ too, he thinks, and wonders why.

He stretches out beside her, a foot and the bedspread between them. He rests his elbows on either side of his torso, steeples his fingers above his chest. After a moment, he turns his head, carefully, deliberately, to look at her.

He lies perfectly still, his eyes tracing the freckle constellation across her skin. The galaxy glows plastic and puerile above them.

* * *

 _Sebastian Moran._

The name emerges, finally, from beneath the images and files and blood-smeared, ruined lives, the high-piled detritus of Moriarty's downfall.

 _Sebastian Moran. Sebastian Moran. Sebastian Moran._

He stares at it through bloodshot eyes where it's scrawled across the wallpaper. Five syllables, fourteen letters. A deceptively innocuous answer to the question: what sits at the center of the web once the spider is dead? He is dangerous, a second-in-command set free, a terrible butterfly shucking away the remnants of a cage, an arachnid extending a leg to manipulate another's threads. Dismantling Moriarty's network began with photographs tacked to walls; it will end, he now knows, with either Moran's death or his own.

And yet – he cannot _think_. He has been awake for seventy-seven hours, and his brain is betraying him, reducing him to sludgy thoughts, to muddy, meaningless metaphors. _A butterfly, a spider. Smoke. The smooth introduction of needle to pulse. Stimulation and sedation on demand. Moran, Moran, Moran._

"Sherlock?"

Molly is beside him. He did not hear her enter and wishes she hadn't. The last thing he needs right now is _her_. He ignores the sudden, gentle pressure of her hand upon her arm.

"Sherlock." Another pause. Then, more insistently, "Sherlock."

He makes a frustrated sound.

"Sherlock, please –"

" _Molly!_ " he bellows. And then, in a sarcastic sing-song, "Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly."

He doesn't have to look up to know he's stunned her, perhaps, if he's lucky, to silence. But, no; a beat later, she says, hesitantly, "Yes?"

His tone, when he answers, is jeering and cruel. "I'm sorry, I was under the impression we were saying each other's names over and over _and over_ with no apparent purpose other than to render ourselves incapable of coherent thought."

"All right," she snaps, her voice abruptly high and loud, "that's _it_." She begins to negotiate the room, thrusting strewn pages into piles, shoving them into file boxes with jerky, graceless movements. "You're being insufferable and unbearable and intolerable and –"

"Invested in a thesaurus, have you?" he returns derisively. The old thesaurus retort, used many times on previous flatmates. John Watson, at least, knew when to _shut up_ ; Molly Hooper, it seems, does not.

She continues heedless, nearly sputtering with agitation. "– will not stand by while you work yourself to death. You need a good night's sleep, and then –"

"What I _need_ , Molly," he snarls, "is a _stimulant_."

That stops her short. She pauses mid-shove to stare at him, wide-eyed. He lets out a mirthless laugh. "Come now, Doctor Hooper," he continues, his words an ugly, mocking mess. "Surely you've heard. Sherlock's got a drug problem."

There is a merciful moment of quiet. Which she ruins with a soft, "I hadn't. Heard." She swallows and meets his eyes determinedly. "But look, Sherlock, you have to rest. I know you run differently than the rest of us, but it's been three days, and even _you_ –"

"An expert on the sleeping habits of sociopaths, are you?" He cannot stop himself. _Propulsive._ "Tell me, did you gain this expertise during your amorous exploits with _Jim_? Because you will forgive me for discounting any facts you believe you discerned during _that_ relationship, given that you _failed_ to discern that _he_ was a mass murderer and _you_ were an inconveniently _chatty_ hospital access tag that happened to generate orgasms."

Utter silence.

He doesn't have to be a social savant to catch the hurt as it hurtles off her. _Painful._ She lets out a long breath, her throat catching strangely on the exhalation. "You're a bastard, Sherlock," she confirms. Then she turns and leaves him in what he thought would be peace but isn't.

* * *

"I am sorry."

He knows she's awake by the irregularity of her breathing, which is loud in the close confines of the spare bedroom. But she doesn't respond.

"I am sorry," he repeats.

This time, she props herself up on her elbows. "What are you doing, Sherlock?" she asks, and there is a strange mix of wariness and weariness in her voice, as if she isn't sure exactly what he'll say but _is_ sure it'll hurt and has resigned herself to the wound. _That_ knowledge hurts _him_ , somehow.

"Apologizing," he says. " _Not_ looming," he adds, for clarity, even though he patently _is_.

There is a pause. "You should be sleeping."

"I know. You're right. You _were_ right."

She is silent again.

"Well," he says finally, clearing his throat, "I'll get to it then, shall I?"

He's made it to the doorway when she speaks. "What drugs?"

He turns slowly to face her. "Molly –"

"Sherlock," she insists, gently, but firmly. She pushes herself upright, and his eyes follow her fingertips as they hover, hesitating, over the bedspread, then finally come to rest on the fabric. She pats it. He raises his gaze to hers. "What drugs?" she murmurs.

He lets out a long breath, then takes the few steps to cross the room. She pulls back the blankets, and he slides in beside her.

They lie there, still and untouching, and at first he thinks she's gotten it all wrong, that she's under the mistaken impression that inviting him into her bed will render an uncomfortable social interaction less so. He's seen an inexcusable number of people fall prey to the elementary error of conflating physical and emotional proximity.

But then he feels it, becomes _aware_ of it, rather: the same something strange he felt in the entry three weeks ago, the same short-stopping possessiveness he felt in her – _his_ – bed three days ago, propulsive and painful and protective. He shifts to look at her; his vision has adjusted to the dimness, and her eyes seem bright in the dark. Maybe she hasn't conflated proximities after all.

"Morphine," he answers, "and cocaine. Strictly past tense, but quite a lot, then."

To her credit, she doesn't flinch. All she says is, "Why?"

He considers. It's not a question he's ever been asked. "Morphine to stop my brain… _thinking_ all the time. Cocaine to start it up again."

She exhales, then moves closer. Her palm finds his forearm, just beneath the elbow. "Oh, Sherlock," she whispers. He blames those two words, and the touch, for the way his fingers come up to brush the wisp of hair, ever-present when she sleeps, from her face. He tucks it behind her ear. She looks at him and breathes.

" _And_ ," he says into the silence, "it didn't feel half bad either."

She lets out a shocked, throaty laugh. "You are ridiculous, Sherlock Holmes."

He smiles.

After a moment, she asks, more seriously, "Does John know?"

"Yes."

"Greg?"

"He has some idea."

"And I didn't. I never noticed."

He hesitates. "No."

"I didn't notice about Jim either," she says, looking past him. "You were right about that." He doesn't reply. He's not sure she's speaking to him at all. "But he was so nice and normal – well, not _normal_ , exactly – but he watched _Glee_ with me, and he _loved_ Toby, and –"

"Serial killers are often partial to animals," he observes.

Her eyes flick back to his, and she gives another breathy laugh. "Well," she replies, shaking herself, "it's a good thing _you_ hate Toby then."

That makes him grin. "Perhaps we should alert Donovan," he suggests. "She will be vastly relieved." This time, her laughter is full and gratifying.

* * *

The next morning, he wakes with her body warm against his. He presses a light kiss to her temple before he goes.

Every day he's away, he wonders if she's filled in the holes in her bedroom wall yet.


	2. ii

(ii)

Near the end, he sits in a shadowed corner of a dingy, back-alley café in Prague and waits. He sips too-milky tea from a chipped cup. The pad of his thumb traces the chiseled lip. He thinks of John's perfect brew and of Molly's ridiculous mug collection.

He hears her enter: the bell over the door tinkles, her heels click as she winds her way through the maze of rickety tables toward him. She sinks down, and he meets her eyes; they are precisely the blue he remembered, vivid and vivacious and glittering up at him from beneath perfectly-smudged lids. The corners of her lips tilt up, but she doesn't speak. Their gazes hold as he lifts a hand to signal the waiter.

"Another tea for –"

"Wine," she corrects. "The house red is fine."

"Mm, perhaps you're right. The tea is –"

"Too milky, yes."

He takes a drink. The cup clinks when he returns it to its saucer. "You come here often," he observes.

"Yes."

"We discussed varying your schedule, did we not?"

"Oh, a girl's got to have _some_ fun, Mr. Holmes," she says. "And I know the owner. Well –"

"You know what he likes."

She smiles fully at last, showing perfect, white teeth. "You're catching on." He thinks of Molly's self-conscious, crooked grin.

Her wine arrives on a paper napkin, and she thanks the waiter with a touch to the forearm so light, so nonchalant, that he might have believed she didn't know the effect it had if he didn't know _her_. The waiter retreats, half-smitten already, and she turns back to him, takes a sip. "So," she says, setting down the glass. She runs a fingertip along its edge; it comes away rosy with lipstick, and she wipes it away, smearing rouge red across the white square. "Shall we start with business or pleasure?"

"Business."

"Of course," she agrees carelessly. "I have it. Everything you asked for." She reaches into her coat and withdraws an envelope. "I'm rather good, don't you think?"

"That depends."

"On?"

"What you did to get it."

She lets out a low, tinkling laugh. "Nothing you wouldn't approve of, Mr. Holmes, I assure you."

His mouth quirks. "Naturally."

"Naturally."

She slides the envelope across the table. When he reaches for it, she lifts her fingers to cover his. Her skin is soft against his knuckles. Her voice is softer. "Let's have dinner," she says.

They sit, suspended, for several seconds. Then he withdraws his hand, takes the envelope with it. Hers is left outstretched on the wood. "Some other time," he replies, tucking the information into his own inner pocket with crisp efficiency.

She cocks her head, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "Interesting," she muses. She picks up her glass and leans back in her chair, swirling the liquid thoughtfully. "So?" she prompts finally. "Who is she?"

He frowns. "She?"

"Come now, Mr. Holmes," she says. "You know I like a game, but don't make me guess."

"Yours is as good as mine," he replies. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."

She sighs threatrically, but her eyes are sparkling with amusement. "Is it the pathologist?" He thinks of Molly's palm on his forearm, just beneath the elbow.

Her laugh is high and sharp with delight. "It is!" She sits forward, resting her elbow on the tabletop and her chin on her hand. "That little slip of a thing…my, my, you _are_ a man of simple tastes."

He scowls despite himself. "How do you know about my pathologist?"

His discomfort, and his use of the possessive, seem to amuse her all the more. "I did my research," she says. "I had to make you _want_ me, didn't I?" She pauses. "Now, if I'd known it was possible to make you _love_ me, I might have put on a white coat." She laughs again. "To think, it could have been as easy as playing doctor."

"You're not a very good listener," he retorts. "I gave you my opinion of love the night I _beat_ you."

"Ah, yes. What was it? 'Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the _losing_ side.'" She reaches across the table to push back a stray curl. Her varnished nails graze his temple, and an involuntary shiver of pleasure dances down his spine. "Well," she says, trailing her fingers along his jawline. She tilts his chin up. " _You_ , my poor, poor man, have definitely lost."

* * *

"I will burn the _heart_ out of you," Moriarty had said.

"I've been reliably informed that I don't have one."

"But we both know that's not quite true."

* * *

Molly doesn't see him until the hazy mirror of the Bart's lockerroom, but he sees her. He's only on his second cup of jasmine in the cramped Chinese takeaway that faces her block of flats when she rounds the corner, shopping bags in tow. She's just the same.

(Hair pulled back, slight indentations above the ears where her usual safety glasses press too tight; still working at Bart's, then, but spending more time in the lab. Finishing a paper, perhaps, or teaching a practicum. Lugging a full-to-bursting 5p bag in one hand and a massive pack of Felix pouches in the other; still forgetting to bring her reusable to Sainsbury's, still catering to Toby the Demon's every whim. And still – he grimaces – cooking eggplant parmigiana on Thursdays. He can see the offending fruit – _she_ informed _him_ it was a fruit, two years ago; _he_ informed _her_ it was inedible – through the plastic.)

Well, he thinks cheerily, eggplant immangiabile will have to wait. He's purchased pot stickers and orange chicken, her favorites, and he knows she'll be especially grateful because she's plodding down the pavement in the hateful, grayish-brown clogs she only wears for back-to-back autopsies.

He stands, leaves a few bills for the tea, and slips, smiling, onto the sidewalk, carry-out swinging at his side. He's halfway across the street when he gets one more deduction than he was expecting. (Left hand held awkwardly against the shopping bag, as if her fingers are heavier, but only just.) She's reached her building, and she maneuvers the Felixes under her arm, fumbles at her coat pocket.

And then it's not so much a deduction as an observation, shiny and sparkling and _real_.

It stops him mid-step.

And he's still stopped, seconds later, when she shuffles inside and, with an artless twist of her ankle, manages to nudge the door shut, taking her shiny, sparkling engagement ring with her.

* * *

Mary Morstan answers the door in a t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, hair damp across her forehead and a towel in hand. "Not very punctual, are you?" she says, mouth quirked amusedly. "Come in," she adds, turning away. He follows her down the hall into her – and John's – flat.

"Kitchen's through there. I won't be a minute." She nods right-ish, then ducks out of sight, into the master bedroom, presumably.

"No," he calls out distractedly, taking the opportunity to peer into the sitting room. He recognizes John's influence immediately; they may both like cinnamoned biscuits, but it's statistically improbable that she _also_ has an independent inclination for Star Trek DVD boxed sets and understuffed sofa cushions. "John's the punctual one."

He hears her approaching once more. By the time she reappears, flat-haired and towel-less, he's casually enconsced in a kitchen chair, inspecting his fingernails.

"Mm, he is," she muses. She smiles pleasantly. "Annoying, isn't it?"

"Very," he agrees.

She opens a cupboard and rummages inside, finally producing mugs and a coffee tin. "Military training, I suppose," she says, manipulating the coffee machine. "Anyway, it's a good thing you were late. Gave me time to have a shower after kickboxing."

"Kickboxing?" he says. He's surprised, and mildly impressed; he'd deduced aerobics.

"Twice a week," she confirms. "I used to be an A&E nurse. You should have _seen_ the injuries…."

"Planning to inflict some?"

She laughs, removing the pot to pour. "If only. Milk and sugar?"

"Black, two sugars, please." He thinks of Molly's flirting.

"But they got me thinking that a bit of self-defense wouldn't go amiss."

He nods noncommittally. He fails to see how forty minutes battering _air_ will help her batter _flesh_ , even if it _is_ twice-weekly. Better to learn how to fire John's gun. But he'd rather get to the point.

She reads his mind. "So," she says, setting down a pair of fragrant, steaming cups and sinking finally into the seat opposite. She fixes him with an unexpectedly arresting gaze. "What is this about?"

"Expertise," he answers.

"Mine?"

"Yours."

"In?"

"Human nature."

"Intriguing." She pauses, eyebrows raised. "Hit me with it."

"An acquaintance of mine is engaged to be married," he says. "And I feel…." He stops. He thinks again of Molly's flirting. And of his own repudiations, the many, many times he was not entirely good. "I feel I may have…missed an opportunity." He finds he's examining his cuffs. He looks up and and clears his throat. "I need an appropriate response," he finishes crisply.

She lifts her coffee, nodding slowly over the lip. Her fingers drum a speculative beat across the tabletop. Finally, she sighs, lowers her voice to a strange, unnecessary mix of nonchalance and understanding, and says, "Is this about John?"

He frowns. "Why would it be about John?" he demands.

"Oh, I don't know," she replies, rolling her eyes. "Engaged to be married, missed opportunity…."

"I know you have a very high opinion of him, Mary," he says irritably, "but not everyone envies you a lifetime of near-compulsive cleanliness and bad clarinet-playing."

"You'd be surprised. Have you met the one with the nose?"

He snorts despite himself.

"Speaking of which," she continues, "were _you_ the one who introduced him to all those nutters?"

"John is perfectly capable of finding his own _nutters_."

She laughs at that, takes a sip – and lets out a sudden, loud cough. "Too hot," she cautions wheezily, swiping the back of her hand across her mouth. She pushes the cup away with an exaggerated shiver. "Why are you asking me, then? If this isn't about John."

"Mrs. Hudson took my skull ages ago. And John and his mustache are busy."

"You mean John isn't speaking to you," she says flatly.

"Surprised he _can_ speak through that" – he gestures vaguely at his own face – "monstrosity."

She guffaws. "He shaved it off."

Now he's _really_ impressed. "Nicely done."

"Well," she replies, smirking, "I can't take _all_ the credit."

She hazards another sip, and he leans back in his chair, crossing right ankle over left knee. He can see why John likes her.

* * *

"Look, what it comes down to is this. Is this person –"

" _She_."

"She. Is she happy?"

"I have no reason to suspect otherwise."

"Then…what is it they say? If you love somebody, let them go. Or is it, set them free? Well, whatever it is…you should let her be, Sherlock. Let her be happy."

* * *

He tries. He really does.

* * *

"You wanted to see me?"

"Yes. Molly –"

"Yes?"

"Would you – would you like to –"

"Have dinner?"

"– solve crimes?"

* * *

"Are you sure about this?"

"Absolutely."

"Should I be making notes?"

"If that makes you feel better."

"Only – it's just that – that's what John says he does. So if I'm being John –"

"You're not being John. You're being yourself."

* * *

"Fancy some chips?"

"What?"

"I know a fantastic fish shop just off the Marylebone Road. The owner always gives me extra portions."

"Did you get him off a murder charge?"

"Nope. Helped him put up some shelves."

* * *

The thing about Tom is, there's absolutely nothing wrong with him.

(Late thirties, never married, financially stable. Health, average – light drinking, no drugs, but poor eyesight. He really should lay off the first-person shooters. Job, middling – a solicitor. Competent, but unconfident, too polite for promotion, too _nice_. Three sisters, two parents, one dog. More ex-girlfriends, but not too many to raise eyebrows, nor too few to raise red flags. Good dress sense, if a little… _derivative_.)

There's nothing right either. He's _boring_ , and three years ago he'd have said he was perfect for Molly, but now all he can muster is a platitude. "I hope you'll be very happy, Molly Hooper."

It's excessive and empty at once. Overwrought and yet utterly not enough.

Mary Morstan would be proud.

* * *

She wears yellow to John's wedding.

 _Bright_ yellow, so garish it nearly glows. It's half past ten and pitch black, but he can see her coming toward him in the dark, a dress-shaped smudge hovering over the ground like some neon apparition. The next time a client reports a haunting, he'll deduce overeager pathologist. In fact, it was clearly the _color_ that drew his gaze – repeatedly – as she bobbed off-beat across the dance floor.

And he'd actually believe that last – if he was a moron.

As it is, he listens, silent, to the unsteady click of her heels and the quiet cadence of her voice as she mutters something beneath her breath, and wonders how he could have let this happen.

"Sherlock?" she calls out.

He lifts his cigarette to his lips, knows she'll follow its flickering end to the copse of trees twenty yards from the ballroom. By the time he tilts his head back against his oak and exhales starward, she's beside him, frowning at the smoke.

"Smoking? But you were doing so well!"

"Took it up again," he says carelessly. "Somewhere in Poland."

Her frown deepens. She clearly wants to ask what's wrong, but given that the answer's sitting snugly on her fourth finger, he's grateful when she settles instead on, "That was brilliant." She nods back in the direction of the ballroom. "In there."

He smiles. "The crime solving? Yes," he muses, taking a self-satisfied draw, "it was surprisingly simple once I identified Sholto as the victim. And I do like to tie up loose ends…the Bloody Guardsman, the Mayfly Man…. Photographer even stuck around to be arrested. Very neat all around, though the Major's near-suicide was a bit of a crimp…."

"I meant the speech," she says flatly. She pauses, then gives a short shrug. "But the crime solving was all right too, I suppose…."

He looks down at that. His eyes narrow accusingly. "Are you being sarcastic?"

She smiles brightly, eyes sparkling. " _No_."

He makes a tetchy sound. "Don't do sarcasm, Molly. It doesn't suit you."

"Oh," she says, retreating immediately. She flushes. "Sorry – I didn't mean –"

He smirks – she's just too _easy_ – and now _her_ eyes narrow. "Are you teasing me?"

" _No_ ," he mimics. She lets out a low laugh. After a moment, he takes another draw, watches the smoke dissolve on the air. "Sarcasm _does_ suit you, actually."

"Does it?"

"No need to fish for compliments."

"Says _Sherlock Holmes_."

"Mm," he admits. "Well played." She giggles, and he grins.

They lapse into companionable silence. A minute later, she reaches down, tugs at her shoe. "I hate these heels," she grumbles.

"Why are you wearing them, then?"

"Societal standards of beauty? Vanity? Pure, unadulterated masochism?" she suggests. "Who can say?"

He laughs. "All terrible reasons. You're fine as you are."

"Am I?"

She's smiling impishly as she says it, and he knows what's expected of him: a tetchy sound, a smirk, the smug reiteration of an earlier quip: "No need to fish for compliments." Six words, all scripted, just another safe scene in their carefully constructed _friendship_.

But instead, he finds himself meeting her eyes and saying, slowly, lowly, deliberately, "More than."

She blinks up at him, and they stand, suspended, for the space of several heartbeats. Then she exhales, clears her throat. "Yes, well," she says, stammering but determined, "Tom's so tall – it just makes sense to add a few inches for –"

He scowls. "Yes," he says irritatedly, "where _is_ Tom? Constructing a meat dagger perhaps?"

She folds her arms over her chest. "Don't be mean," she chides.

"That was idiotic. And don't pretend you didn't think so," he adds. "Remind me never to get within stabbing distance of your fork."

She makes a shocked sound. "I _never_ –" He arches an eyebrow, and she rolls her eyes. "All right, I did. But he's not idiotic! He's –"

"Moronic?"

"No!"

"Stupid?"

" _Now_ who's invested in a thesaurus?"

He snorts appreciatively but continues undeterred. "Weak-willed?"

"Sherlock!" she says, scandalized.

"Indecisive? Boring?"

"Well!" she interrupts loudly. "It's a good job _I'm_ all of those things too. We're a perfect match."

"No," he says urgently, straightening and looking straight at her. "No." He steps toward her, his cigarette discarded in the dirt, his hands suddenly coarse at the curves of her jawline. Her eyes are dewy, her lips parted. "You, Molly Hooper, are none of those things. Never."

And then he kisses her.

Later, much later, he will conclude that his rashness resulted from thoughts of Tom and Jim and jealousy, from thoughts of Mary Watson and her silly little saying: if you love someone, let them go, set them free, let her be happy. Hypocritical _and_ inapplicable, as it turns out, the former because if shooting your husband's best friend to save your marriage isn't _holding on_ , he doesn't know what is, and the latter because, put plainly, Molly Hooper isn't happy. She's _settling_.

With all the self-deluding benefit of hindsight, he will identify those thoughts as his undoing.

But the fact of the matter is, in that moment, with grass below and sky above and _Molly_ , warm and bright and glowing between his palms, he isn't thinking anything at all.

* * *

He doesn't sleep for the next thirty-two hours. He thinks twenty-four is sufficient, initially, then remembers John's messier breakups and settles on the extra twelve. But his mind is a live wire, his thoughts taut and thrumming with current, and he can't sit still. And between his restless driving into London and his relentless pacing in 221B, Mrs. Hudson nearly _shoves_ him out in hour thirty-one.

As he takes his suit jacket, held out to him with a tut at the base of the stairs, he has a thought. "What kind of food is traditional post breakup?" he asks.

Her brow furrows. "Why? Has somebody broken up?"

"No one you know," he lies. He shrugs off his dressing gown and on the jacket. "Just a friend."

Her expression softens. " _I_ had a friend once –"

"Just the one?" he teases. He finds he's in a teasing mood.

She tuts again and he grins. "Don't be rude, dear," she scolds, trying to hide her amusement. She folds her arms across her chest determinedly. "Not when you've kept me up half the night banging in and out of your flat and blowing things up."

"Science doesn't keep hours, Mrs. Hudson!" he says, swiping a kiss across her cheek as he opens the door.

"Not decent, as always," she says, smiling outright now. "You'd think there'd been a murder. You might try being a _bit_ less cheerful when you see your friend," she adds as he steps out into the early morning mist. "And ice cream wouldn't go amiss. And something with a bit of kick!"

Per suggestion, he arrives on Molly's doorstep with four flavors of Ben & Jerry's and a bottle of wine. He has been inside twice since his return – once for a group dinner, with John, Mary, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson in tow, and once to collect a sack of diseased corneas. The latter was significantly less unpleasant.

Both times, he was immediately attacked by Tom's pomeranian "Powerpuff." The puff was self-evident, the power less so. As it lacked both physical and mental function, the _power_ was clearly in its ancestors' ability to avoid the swift justice of natural selection. He now feels a certain camaraderie with Toby, who spent both visits hissing at it from atop the refrigerator. He smiles; he's confident Powerpuff will have gone with Tom.

He knocks, trying to be a _bit_ less cheerful. A minute later he doesn't have to try.

"Sherlock?"

Tom answers the door in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms, an empty coffee mug dangling at his side.

There is a long, gaping silence.

"Is there something you –" Tom starts finally. He's cut off when, true to form, the canine in question comes scuttling around the corner, tongue swaying beneath wide, vacant eyes. It manages three rings through his ankles before Tom scoops it up and says, "Sorry – obedience lessons aren't really taking." And then, more warily, "Do you want to come in?"

He really _doesn't_ , but he finds himself moving inside anyway, into the kitchen, into a chair. He feels unmoored. He's rarely wrong, and with the exception of Christmas, years ago, he's _never_ wrong about Molly Hooper. But Tom and his mug and his mutt, answering the door at five thirty in the morning in Hanes and checked trousers, doesn't need deducing: this time, he has been.

"– funny you're here, actually," Tom is saying. He hardly hears. "I've been wanting to explain – about that whole _meat dagger_ thing –"

"Tom? Who was it?"

Molly, damp-haired and dressed for work, follows her voice into the room. She stops short. "Sherlock!" she says. Their eyes meet. A beat, then she flushes, looks away. He feels a rush of something he's much more familiar with.

"– obviously didn't mean he'd, you know, _made_ a –"

"Quite a lot of sex," he says abruptly.

Molly freezes.

Tom falls silent, blinks. "Sorry?"

"Having it, apparently," he replies. "The two of you." He sets his elbows on the table, his gaze on Molly's over steepled fingers. "According to _you_." His tone is derisive. He prefers angry to unmoored. She doesn't look away, doesn't speak either.

Tom glances between them, brows raised. Finally, he barks out an awkward laugh. "Ah," he says. "Well." Another laugh. "That's my Mol, isn't it? She tends to overshare…."

He thinks of the "Mol" – the " _my_ Mol" – Tom knows, oversharing and underwhelming and _settling_ , and the one he patently _doesn't_ , warm and bright and glowing, with the breeze and _his_ fingers threading through her hair, and says, skeptically, " _Does she?_ "

Tom frowns, glances between them again. "Well," he ventures, "with her job – has to tell all the tales, doesn't she?" Silence. "You know," Tom insists, "because dead men tell no tales." The proverbial pin drops. Tom clears his throat. "Sorry – joke."

"Was it?" he says nastily, "I hadn't noticed."

" _All right_ ," Molly says suddenly, sharply. " _Outside_ , Sherlock."

Once there, she whirls. "What are you – what – what was _that_?" she demands loudly, fists clenched at her sides.

"A joke, apparently," he taunts. "Shall we add unfunny to the list?"

"The list?"

"Of Tom's deficiencies. At least _try_ to keep up, Molly. He _is_ your problem."

"Stop it, Sherlock," she snaps. "He's my _fiance_."

His lip curls. "Yes," he says, voice suddenly venomous. "He is."

A beat, and then, "Oh," she stammers, eyes rounding. "That's – _that's_ what this is about, isn't it? You thought – you thought I'd have ended things with Tom after what happened –"

"Mm, and apparently I overestimated you," he replies. "Inexcusable, in retrospect, to expect a woman who failed to distinguish the Consulting Criminal from a Glee-watching information technician –"

"Sherlock –" she starts warningly.

"– to be capable of distinguishing an imitation from the genuine article."

Her warning dies on her lips. She stares at him, incredulous. "The _genuine article_?"

"Come now, Molly. Height, hair, coat, scarves. All Tom's missing," he sneers, tapping a forefinger against his temple, "is everything _important_."

She opens her mouth, closes it again, cheeks flushed. When words come, they are hard at the center, but strangely soft at the edges, thin and breathless. "No matter what you might _think_ , Tom is – he's _decent_ , warm and considerate and kind, and he loves me –"

"Yes, well," he says, "there's no accounting for taste."

She physically recoils, taking a step back so that her heel hits awkwardly against the doorstep.

"Even discounting preferences, though," he continues, undeterred, "I imagined a moral compass might have entered into the equation." He cocks his head at her. "Or doesn't betrothal require fidelity? By all means, correct me – you're always educating me on the niceties of social interaction, aren't you? _Sherlock, don't do that. Sherlock, don't say that. Sherlock, apologize to the dead man._ "

"I was just trying – that's not fair. That was all just –"

"Hypocrisy," he finishes. "And apparently it suits you."

He knows exactly what he's throwing in her face: every crossed arm, every raised brow, every time she shot him that nervous, little half-smirk and told him to eat this, drink that, get your shoes off the sofa, be nice. Knows exactly how it's hitting her too: hard-won intimacies recast as infidelities, and all that ease undone.

He wonders if he should mourn the loss, but he can hear his heartbeat pounding past his eardrums and not much else, and anyway, if it's intimacy she wants, there's always Tom, who's _decent_.

"Makes a particular mockery of all those lectures on the sanctity of matrimony, doesn't it?"

"What –"

" _It's not pointless, Sherlock. It's a lifelong commitment, Sherlock._ "

"You mean – oh, _John's_ marriage," she grasps. "That's –" She stops short. Her breath catches oddly, and suddenly she exhales something between a sob and a mirthless, miserable laugh. " _Oh_ , John's marriage," she repeats, more flatly.

"Yes, not so very sacred now, is it?"

"Is this about John?" she whispers.

He lets out a groan. " _Why_ ," he demands, throwing up his hands," _does_ everyone _think this is about John?_ "

"Because he's just got married." She blinks, and moisture spills over. She swipes at her cheek, sucks in a damp breath. "And you're sad or lonely or just _bored_ – and you've decided to play some _game_." Her voice is rising again, hard, soft, hysterical. "You know I have – _had_ – this silly, little crush on you, for just – for ages – and you've decided to see if you can wreck –" She swallows, meets his eyes. "Is it?"

She asks it quietly, pleadingly.

"Is it some game?"

He exhales through his nostrils. He thinks of coffee and candy and garish, glowing dresses, of tikka and Tom and being wrong, knows what he should say, and doesn't. "Well, Doctor Hooper," he drawls instead, managing a smirk. "The game was, inalterably, on."

He's been wrong about Molly Hooper.

He takes the Smallwood case because he's _right_ about Augustus Magnussen. The drugs are just a bonus.

* * *

"You!" _Slap._ "Horrible!" _Slap._ "Immature!" _Slap._

"All right, Mary – he's not – don't –"

"Selfish!" _Slap._ " _Prat!_ " _Slap._

Words and wounds slough off him like old skin. _A butterfly shucking away a cage. His hands ringing and wringing Moran's neck. Magnussen, Magnussen, Magnussen._

"Come now, Mary," he says at last. He's too settled, glassy-gazed and languid, but they do not deduce the obvious: _the smooth introduction of needle to pulse, morphine bound to blood._ "Surely you can do better than _prat_."

"This is serious, Sherlock," John says darkly. "Molly's been nothing but kind to you, and you've treated her like shit."

He thinks of soft, brown eyes, tense with wariness and weariness, and shuts his own. He hardly opens them again until it's Molly hitting him.

* * *

"Well? Is he clean?"

" _Clean?_ "

(Thinner beneath her crisp coat, bruised beneath her lower lids – dark, little smudges like newspapered fingerprints – too few meals on too little sleep. Posture poor, bending beneath the weight of something that's–)

Three slaps: two right-handed, one left.

(– _not_ her engagement ring.)

"How dare you throw away the beautiful gifts you were born with! And how dare you betray the love of your friends! Say you're sorry."

"Sorry your engagement's over. Though I'm fairly grateful for the lack of a ring."

"Stop it. _Just_ stop it."

* * *

He meets John at Magnussen's building.

"Magnussen's office is on the top floor, just below his private flat. There are fourteen layers of security between us and him, two of which aren't even legal in this country. Want to know how we're going to break in?"

"Is that what we're doing?"

"Of course it's what we're doing."

…

"There's a camera at eye height to the right of the door. A live picture of the card user is relayed directly to Magnussen's personal staff in his office, the only people trusted to make a positve ID. At this hour, almost certainly his PA."

"So how does that help us?"

"Human error. I've been shopping. Here we go, then."

…

"You see? As long as there's people, there's always a weak spot."

"That was Janine!"

"Yes, of course it was Janine. She's Magnussen's PA. That's the whole point."

"Did you just get engaged to break into an office?"

"Yeah. Stroke of luck, meeting her at your wedding. You can take some of the credit."

"Je—Jesus, Sherlock. She loves you."

"Yes. Like I said, human error."

* * *

Mary Watson's bullet is death condensed, and feels like it.

The first thing he sees is Molly.

* * *

 _You're most certainly going to die, so we need to focus. I said, focus! It's all well and clever having a mind palace, but you've only three seconds of consciousness left to use it. So, come on. What's going to kill you?_

Blood loss, the gun, Mycroft and the mirror.

 _Sherlock, you need to fall on your back. Right now the bullet is the cork in a bottle. The bullet itself is blocking most of the blood flow. But any pressure or impact on the entrance wound could dislodge it. Plus, on your back, gravity is working for us. Fall now._

Shock, the east wind, Mary and the wedding gown.

 _Must be something in this ridiculous memory palace of yours that can calm you down. Find it._

Pain, the dog, Moriarty and the padded cell.

 _You. You never felt pain, did you? Why did you never feel pain? You always feel it, Sherlock. But you don't have to fear it! Pain, heartbreak, loss, death. It's all good. It's all good. It's raining, it's pouring, Sherlock is boring. I'm raining, I'm crying, Sherlock is dying._

John's voice. "We're losing you! Sherlock!"

 _Come on, Sherlock. Just die, why don't you? One little push, and off you pop. You're going to love being dead, Sherlock. No one ever bothers you. Mrs. Hudson will cry, and Mummy and Daddy will cry, and the Woman will cry. And John will cry buckets and buckets. It's him that I worry about the most. That wife – you're letting him down, Sherlock. John Watson is definitely in danger._

John, the blog, Baker Street and the very best of times.

 _What's going to kill you?_

Blood loss. Shock. Pain. John. _Molly._ Molly in her white coat, in her high heels, in her clunky clogs. In her striped scarf, her checked trousers, and her bright, bright dress. _Love is a chemical defect found in the losing side. Well, you, my poor, poor man, have definitely lost._

Molly in her foyer and her kitchen and his bed. _An acquaintance of mine is engaged to be married. And I feel…I feel I may have…missed an opportunity._

Molly in his arms and his head and his heart. _I've been reliably informed I don't have one. But we both know that's not quite true._

 _Molly's been nothing but kind to you, and you've treated her like shit. Je-Jesus, Sherlock. She loves you. Yes. Like I said –_

"Well, Doctor Hooper. The game was, inalterably, on."

 _What's going to kill you?_

– _human error._

* * *

"It wasn't."

The room is dim when he says it, and she startles, letting out a small, involuntary snort and blinking into the half-light. She exhales, steadying herself between surprise and sleep, then straightens in the hospital visitors' chair. The fabric of her oversized jumper crinkles against the plastic. She squints at him, at his vitals monitor – and reaches immediately for the call button.

"Don't," he says softly.

She hesitates, but withdraws her hand.

"I'm fine."

"You're not a doctor," she observes.

" _You_ are." He nods at the board clipped to the foot of the bed.

"Yes," she agrees drily, "but all _my_ patients are dead."

He makes an appreciative sound at that, and watches her try to hide a smile by reaching for the chart. She flips a page, scanning down the columns of cramped physicians' scrawl. She frowns up at his vitals again, then stands to inspect the wound.

She unsticks his bandage with a few, deft moves, studiously avoiding eye contact. She's hovering over him, so close he can smell the floral freshness of her shampoo, can see the red-tinged translucence of the shell of her ear. His throat tightens as she traces the bruising at the base of his sternum. Her fingertips, cool and dry, make a soft, papery sound against his skin.

He shifts, ever so slightly, and she flushes. Her hands falter. "Sorry, I –"

"Shall I make it easier?" he murmurs lowly, confidentially. "Cause of death: gunshot wound to the chest."

She lets out a shocked laugh, her gaze sliding finally to his. "That's not funny," she says sternly.

He smirks. "Isn't it?"

She rolls her eyes, resumes her examination. He reaches up to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear. She stiffens, and her fingers find the hole in his chest.

He hisses.

"You'll live," she says, replacing the bandage and backing abruptly away, and he's not sure if she's scolding or conceding.

She settles back down. With her sleeves pooled around her wrists and her legs tucked neatly beneath her, she looks delicate, almost child-like. And yet, the smudges beneath her lids, darker now than when he first saw them, are decidedly adult. He wonders how many nights she's spent here.

He's about to ask when he notices Janine's newspapers, still lying where she left them. " _He made me wear the hat_ ," declares the _Daily Mail_. Molly notices too.

"I didn't enjoy –

"I wasn't reading –

"– using her."

"– that."

She laughs awkwardly.

He clears his throat. "I didn't enjoy it," he repeats. "Using her."

"No. I know you didn't."

"Do you?"

"Of course." She pauses. Her lips quirk. "You hate that hat."

This time, _he_ laughs.

"Really, though," she adds, sobering. She nips her lower lip and looks at him. "You're better than you pretend to be."

They sit in silence for several seconds, staring at each other. "Tom?" he says, at last.

She sighs, tries for a smile, swallows. "Over."

He nods slowly. "Just as well," he offers. "Bad coat. Polyester blend. Was never going to do anything substantial in _that_."

She snorts. "He was nice."

"You can do better than nice."

"Yes, well," she says repressively, glancing down at the armrest. She plucks at the place where plastic meets metal. "So you've said."

"I _meant_ what I said," he replies, waiting for her gaze to find its way back. Her eyes are dewy, her pupils dark. He thinks of his hands on her jawline, his fingers in her hair. "Meant what I _did_ , too."

She inhales, and he presses on, his heartbeat pushing up against his palate. "It wasn't."

He knows she's processed it this time. Her right thumb presses into her left palm, furrowing deep into the flesh, mooring her. Every other part of her is still. "It wasn't a game," he says thickly. "It _isn't_. And I'm sorry –"

"It's fine," she says suddenly.

"No, it's not –"

"Sherlock –

"Let me – Molly – I'm sorry. I am so sorry for what I –"

She lurches suddenly toward him, and he thinks of her predictable gracelessness, of her beautiful, singular inelegance. "Don't," she says softly, and stops him.

* * *

"Sorry. No chance for you to be a hero this time, Mr. Holmes."

"Oh, do your research. I'm not a hero. I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Merry Christmas!"

" _Man down! Man down!"_

…

"Oh, Christ, Sherlock."

"Give my love to Mary. Tell her she's safe now."

* * *

Climate has yielded to cliché, and it has started to rain.

He stands at the window, watching the slow slide of droplets toward the sill and London toward night. He resists the urge to press his forehead against the chill, rain-tracked glass, to think cold thoughts about living with friends and dying without them. Instead, he presses his lids together and thinks about ash. He knows ash.

Behind him, the door clicks open, then shut. "She's here."

He doesn't turn. "No, she's not," he corrects his brother's reflection. " _You're_ here, which is considerably less agreeable."

Mycroft ignores the jibe. "I'll admit that I do not understand this…attachment, Sherlock," he says. "Although," he adds, with a small shrug, "I suppose it needn't trouble me much longer."

He opens his mouth to retort, but Mycroft waves a hand dismissively, and he's inclined to agree: _too easy_. He waits. Mycroft doesn't leave. Finally, he whirls, brows raised. "Well?" he demands.

Mycroft shoves one hand into a trouser pocket. "I've bought you six months, you know," he says. "Six months that would otherwise consist of forty-eight square feet and a felon's jumpsuit. They don't tailor those."

"Are you expecting gratitude?"

"Yes, actually." He scoffs, but Mycroft continues undeterred. "Five years ago, six months with a case to solve and _without_ human interruption would have been your idea of a holiday."

He contemplates that comment, head cocked. "Yes," he concludes at last. "I rather think you _don't_ understand."

The two of them consider each other over the _real_ hardware of the British government: not guns or tanks but yellow legal pads, red woods, and fabrics in various shades of institutional gray. He's called his brother his arch-enemy, but he knows as well as their mother that the only things standing between them and fraternal _fondness_ are too much ego and too many IQ points. They really _could_ understand each other.

At last, Mycroft pushes his shoulders back, adjusts his suit jacket. "Well," he says, turning away. "I'll see you on the tarmac."

"Mycroft." His brother pauses. "Thank you for bringing her."

"Ah, so you _are_ capable of gratitude."

He swallows another retort and says instead, meaningfully, "Yes, I am."

Mycroft regards him for a beat, then sighs and inclines his head. "Don't draw this out, little brother," he says, glancing toward the door. "You'll only hurt her. _And_ , it seems," he adds, nose wrinkling with distaste, " _yourself_."

The door clicks twice more, and then she is before him, wearing her beige trenchcoat and the pink-striped scarf he gave her for Christmas, two years and a lifetime ago.

She knows something's wrong, but offers an uncertain smile. "Bit cloak and dagger, isn't he, your brother?" she says.

"He tries."

He rounds the conference table too slowly, aware that he's drawing this out, and draws close. He cups her chin. "I have to go away," he says. "It is…unlikely that I'll be able to return."

She meets his eyes. "What do you need?" she whispers.

He manages a sad smile. "Nothing," he whispers back. He tilts her face up and leans down to press a single, lingering kiss to her cheek. "Nothing, this time."

He will never regret driving a bullet through the Appledore vaults, but he _will_ regret this.

* * *

 _Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you miss me?_

The plane banks, and he realizes: two years ago, Moriarty thought Molly Hooper didn't matter at all to him. The Consulting Criminal rarely makes mistakes; on that roof he made only one. He will not make it twice.

He finds her at Bart's, half-hidden by a tower of cream-white file boxes, a dozen folders at her elbow and one in her lap. The name is printed in neat, black letters that he does not need to read.

"Molly."

She jumps; papers scatter. "Sherlock," she says hoarsely. "Are you –"

"Back, yes."

"So is he." Her voice catches, wavers. "Jim – he's –"

"I know."

She turns back, breathing hard. "I don't understand," she says. "I did it myself – and I can't – I did the autopsy _myself_ –"

Her hand is trembling. He moves forward, stills it with his own. She looks up at him.

" _I_ saw him pull the trigger," he says.

A beat of silence, then she exhales a hollow laugh and steps, almost stumbles, into his arms. "I didn't want to go home," she murmurs. "He knows where I live. Stupid, really. He knows where I work too. I just thought – at least there are people upstairs –"

"You're not going home."

"Where am I going?"

" _We_ , Molly," he says, his fingers tangled in the hair at the curve of her neck. " _We_ are going to Baker Street."

* * *

He and Moriarty made the same mistake. Molly Hooper is anything but irrelevant, anything but ordinary. Moriarty will never underestimate her again. And, he thinks, as he lets them into 221B, as their eyes meet in the hushed, narrow space at the base of the stairs: neither will he.


End file.
